Inmate`s File Only One Bit Of Mystery

June 15, 1986|By James H. Tolpin, Staff Writer

The discovery of some of Mario Abraham`s missing medical records has added a new chapter to a story already replete with strange occurrences.

Palm Beach County Sheriff`s Office records show employees of Prison Health Services, the Palm Beach County Jail`s health-care provider, found original documents from Abraham`s lost medical file three separate times between September and January.

The whole file disappeared about Aug. 3, three weeks before the Aug. 26 start of the public inquest into Abraham`s death, a slow death that involved suspect medical treatment by doctors and nurses at PHS and Humana Hospital Palm Beaches.

On June 14 a year ago, the poor, Creole-speaking Haitian laborer from Delray Beach was beaten by deputies -- one of whom wielded a broom -- in the Palm Beach County Jail`s wing for mentally troubled inmates, testimony at a rare public inquest showed. He died June 19.

Inquest Judge Michael Miller concluded Aug. 26 that the records had been stolen from a secure area of the jail.

At Miller`s orders, PHS personnel searched their offices thoroughly but said they found nothing.

Toward the end of January, PHS vice president Jackie Moore found Abraham`s medical folder in a file cabinet for employees` files -- not prisoners` files -- at the Broward County Jail.

At that time, and at the time of Abraham`s death, PHS provided inmate health care at both Palm Beach and Broward County jails. The Delaware-based company was replaced in Palm Beach County in April for financial reasons, sheriff`s officials have said.

Inside the folder were two pages of original records and a thick copy of Abraham`s file from Humana, Moore said.

She said she suspects somebody planted the file there knowing that Moore was planning to examine employees` files.